opiates

This should probably go into castitas.com but I feel like writing on my main blog. Kratom (known as ketum in Malaysia) is a leaf with psychoactive properties. I have been searching for it for quite some time – it’s sold in certain parts of Malaysia (especially in the rural cultivation community) in bags of homemade prepared liquid kratom.

Unfortunately, the Malaysian government decided to ban ketum a few years back and the only ones available are highly dubious and sans quality control. Kratom is illegal in Malaysia.

It is rather ironic that I have to travel all the way to Amsterdam to experience a psychoactive plant that is indigenous to MY OWN COUNTRY.

Kratom (ketum) is available in most smartshops in Amsterdam for about Euro 15. This is not your garden variety kratom – much like salvia divinorum, it has been enhanced – this is a 5x extract of kratom. This means that the liquid concentrate is 5x more potent than what is naturally available.

I have to be honest here…I’m rather disappointed with the kratom/ketum experience. I had expected too much of an opiate high due to its properties. I was told to take half a bottle by the smartshops but I ingested the entire bottle on an empty stomach. I was expecting something like DHC (dihydrocodiene) or at least plain old codeine. Kratom is not like that at all.

I started feeling the effects at T +0:30 (30 minutes after dosing for those unfamiliar with the nomenclature of trip reports) – a general feeling of well being and (surprisingly) serotonin release. It doesn’t feel like traditional opiates (e.g. the nodding off, itchiness and other miscellaneous properties) but more like certain opioid analogues.

It should be noted that the effects of kratom is VERY MILD. I shouldn’t have written that in caps (and bolded it to boot, FML) lest people get the wrong impression and think that it’s strong. It’s not. Go in without expectations, consume with an open mind and let the ketum experience wash over you.

…just don’t expect too much.

I can describe the feeling further to those who are familiar with recreational pharmaceuticals. It feels like 200 mg of tramadol. Tramadol is another substance in the happy opiate family but it produces none of the classic recreational opiate subjective feelings. It’s a bit of a stimulant combined with a general sense of well being.

…and that is essentially what kratom (ketum) gives you. It releases serotonin (which won’t go down well with fundamentalist opiate users) and gives you a happy sense of well being for about 4 hours. You’ll feel a significant bit of nausea while coming up and crashing but it’s nothing a bit of cannabis won’t fix.

I truthfully am more than a little disappointed with the kratom experience. What irks me the most is that I had to travel thousands of miles to consume a psychoactive plant that is native to my country. -_-

Additional info site:
The problem with getting used to taking opiates is that you will eventually experience opiate withdrawal symptoms once you stop abruptly.

Note: This report details experiences in the past. I am not using tramadol anymore and I do not use any drugs, legal or otherwise now.

I have been using tramadol hydrochloride on a daily basis for
several months now and I feel that my experience with this substance is
sufficient for a detailed report. Tramadol requires a prescription in
most countries, but it is OTC in Malaysia. This makes it perfectly
legal to possess and use. It’s considered a weak opiate agonist but it
has strange serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor effects. In
other words, theoretically, it calms you down, makes you happy and
gives you some energy. I usually buy Tramadolor, which is manufactured
in Germany.

I get five boxes for RM 300, which comes to RM 6 per blister pack.
There are 10 blister packs in a box and each blister pack contains 10
capsules of 50 mg of tramadol hydrochloride, so that makes 500 mg in
total. The standard retail price is usually around the RM 13 – RM 15
per blister pack, but a pharmacy in Sibu sells it to me for RM 6 per
blister pack when I buy a minimum of five boxes. Tramadol is fast
acting, personally, it hits in about 10 minutes or less and peaks at T+
4:00 before slowly returning to baseline.

There are a lot of people who doesn’t have a high regard for
tramadol, condemning it as a useless substance. I have a lot of
experience with both illicit substances and pharmaceuticals so I’m
speaking from my personal experience. Clinical trials seem to indicate
that a lot of people can’t “get off” on tramadol. However, there is a
small percentage of people that can get something out of tramadol. Off
the top of my head, it’s about 7% of the subjects in the clinical trial.

I use tramadol to boost my mood. It works very well, so I consider
it “recreational”. The effects I feel is a serotonin release (the
neurotransmitter that makes you “happy”, to make things simple) and
also an increase in energy. The best way to describe the psychoactive
experience is that tramadol makes me happy. It makes me very happy. :)

However, tolerance builds up very quickly with tramadol. I use it on
a daily basis, so this is an issue to consider. Basically, you won’t be
able to get off on tramadol unless you increase the dose if you’re
using it daily. Personally, I increase the dose every other day, so it
bring me through the whole working week.

My personal policy is to start with 200 mg of tramadol on Monday,
and that gives me a nice boost to start off the week. The dose is
repeated on Tuesday, but with the tolerance, the effects aren’t as
strong as Monday. I take it on an empty stomach early in the morning
with lots of caffeine.

I escalate the dose by 50 mg increments, so on Wednesday, I take 250
mg, and the same goes for Thursdays. I go up to 300 mg on Friday and
Saturday and Sunday is a “rest day” so I can get off on 200 mg on
Monday the following week. This works well for me, it makes me happy
throughout the work week.

There’s something that should be noted here – do NOT take tramadol
after taking any pure opiate agonists like codeine, DHC, heroin etc.
The mixed opiate agonist/antagonist nature of tramadol will make you
dope sick if you don’t put at least a full 24 hour rest day in between.
If you do take tramadol earlier than that, you’ll be very sorry you
did. ;)

I know there are a lot of people out there who does not get the
effects of tramadol. Tough. There are some that do, and for these lucky
few, tramadol IS recreational. I find it useful to get me through the
work week and be productive in my work. :)

Disclaimer: This post was written a long time ago,
and is not reflective of events now. It should be noted that tramadol
can be dangerous if the dose exceeds 400 mg and it also decreases the
seizure threshold. Tramadol can lead to dependency in some individuals.

These beauties are manufactured by GSK (GlaxoSmithKline – the
pharmaceutical giant). DF 118, as it’s fondly referred to, have opiate
agonist properties, which makes it recreational. However, I am strongly against off label use. I bought a bottle off my pharmacy friend due to my…er, recurring migraines. ;)

There are some people who prefer codeine over dihydrocodeine (DHC).
Personally, I find that DHC is qualitatively stronger on an mg to mg
comparison and it has a strange slight stimulant quality, which makes
it better than codeine, IMHO.

I got a bottle (500 tablets) of 30 mg DF 118 for RM 400. It usually
sells for RM 1 each, but as with all things, bulk purchases come with
discounts. ;)

These are Fortwin tablets, made by Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals in India.
Unlike most pentazocine tablet formulations, Fortwin tablets do not
have Naloxone (an opiate antagonist, basically nullifies the “good”
effects of opiates). Technically, this makes it more euphoric and also
makes the tablets injectable. Fortwin tabs is the only formulation that
contains the lactate injectable form of pentazocine and is much sought after.
The Malaysian list of approved pharmaceuticals does not include pentazocine
only tablets (it only has pentazocine for injections in vials) so I was puzzled at
how my pharmacist managed to get a hold of these.

Anyway, he told me that these were supposed to be cleared out ages
ago, but the expiry date was still valid (expires next year) and he
only had 8 tablets of 25 mg pentazocine hydrocloride each, so he just
left it in the stock room. These are from India, the tablets have
“FORTWIN” imprinted on the front and “RANBAXY” on the back. There is a
single score running down the back of the tablets and they appear to be
off-white, with blue specks.

Well, since he only has 8 of them left, he sold it to me for RM 0.80
each, instead of the list price of RM 1.50. I just happened to stumble
across these while looking around my friend’s stock room for
recreational offerings from The Wonderful World of Pharmaceuticals.
I’ve heard of pentazocine before as one of the lesser known opiate
agonists (or opioids to be more accurate) and I’ve read of DXM type
disassociative effects dominating the opiate type effects at higher
doses. An aside for new readers, I have a friend who owns a pharmacy,
so I do not need prescriptions for prescription drugs.

Fortwin by Ranbaxy tablets photo.

Anyway, since the 8 tablets total only 200 mg, I could not
experiement with the 300 mg and 400 mg doses quoted as necessary for
producing DXM type reactions, so my experience was with pentazocine as
an opiate agonist. I took 200 mg on an empty stomach and potentiated it
(as I assumed all opiates can be potentiated) with benzodiazepines – 3
mg alprazolam and 20 mg diazepam. I am sufficiently experienced with
benzodiazepines (very sadly so) so I could differentiate the effects. I
wrote this:

it’s like codeine but qualitatively “dreamier”, more “smacky”,
and stronger than an equal dose, i’ll say comparable to 350 – 400 mg
codeine.
stuck to bed
late histamine release – 3 h?
“heavy” feeling more than codeine
it makes a buzzing sound when on and no buzzing sound when off

Well, many hours later (after the opiate effects were tapering off)
I found it very hard to go to sleep. I took some more benzos (50 mg
diazepam) but sleep was unattainable even after 3 hours. I had rather
strange “thought loops” and very minor “flanging” as I lay there with
my eyes closed…almost like a 3rd plateau DXM trip, although obviously
with much, much less intensity. Whether this is possible with just 200
mg of pentazocine or not is questionable, and I could not obtain any
more pentazocine only (without naloxone) tablets to repeat the
experiement, so take the DXM part as just an aside.

Anyway, I did not know the exact time I fell asleep, but it was
about T+ 10 or more. Oh, and by the way, I’m benzodiazepine tolerant so
the diazepam wouldn’t have helped much. Well, Fortwin (pentazocine
hydrocloride) tablets seems to be a fun compound – I mean the Ranbaxy
manufactured ones without any nasty opiate antagonists. It’s a little
different from codeine and dihydrocodeine, pentazocine has its own
strange character, but it’s not comparable with the higher end opiates
like oxycodone or heroin if you’re wondering.

I do not know the LD50 values for pentazocine, but 200 mg (verified)
doses does not kill if that helps. ;) It’s funny, this pentazocine –
it’s classified as a benzomorphan (what an interesting name) or
benzazocine. The US formulation of Talwin contains naloxone if I’m not
mistaken, but if you find this Ranbaxy Fortwin tablets, give them a
test drive*, it’s certainly something different and interesting. :) I
would love to hear if anyone has experience with 300-400 mg doses and
noticed effects consistant with dextromethorphan.

*This only applies to existing recreational drug users who are
willing to experiment. sixthseal.com does not promote drug use –
illicit or otherwise and does not condone such activities to people who
are not already aquainted with or part of the diverted pharmaceuticals
or illicit substance use scene.